The Problem
by Oh Shiitake Mushrooms
Summary: Lily has a dream about James that makes it uncomfortable for her to be around him. Pre-Jily. Oneshot.


**A/N: I recently came to the realization that James Potter and Lily Evans are great, so here's a story about them in their sixth year. This is post-Snape's Worst Memory, by the way. In case that wasn't clear. **

**Also, credit where credit is due: I totally got this idea from tumblr user prongsvssquid and I hope they don't mind.**

* * *

Some mornings, Lily Evans lies in bed and wonders what the worst aspect of the situation is. Maybe it's the physical proof; she often wakes up clutching her pillow as if it were a person. Maybe it's the people she surrounds herself with; she has no Muggle friends back home and she can't confide in anyone in Gryffindor house, not about this, because she doesn't want it to be a Thing. Maybe the worst part of this is James Potter himself, and the fact that she has to see him first thing in the morning every day. Some mornings, she tries to convince herself that there's no situation at all, just the occasional strange dream. And it's totally natural that the dream would stay in her head for the rest of the day. After all, these dreams are very strange and not at all based in reality.

Today, Lily reaches under her bed and pulls out a small journal. She props herself up so that she's sitting against her headboard, pulls out a quill, and begins to write.

_12 December 1976  
Walked into common room, no one there but JP. Arms stretched across back of couch that he sits on. Sat down very close to him as if that was normal. His arm relaxed around me. My head on his shoulder. Talked about transfiguration and going to Hogsmeade and transfiguring objects in Hogsmeade. He kissed me in the middle of a sentence and wrapped his other arm around me and guided me onto my back._

Lily stops writing and tries not to tell herself that this has definitely become a problem. She flips back a few pages in the dream journal and counts the number of entries that involve James Potter. Too many. And they seemed to be becoming increasingly more intimate. Never before had she dreamed about putting her head on his shoulder. That was even worse than the fucking and snogging.

She closes the journal and runs through the list in her head of people she knows. There has to be someone she can talk to about this, someone who can tell her that she's not starting to fancy the guy who got over his crush on her a long time ago. No one from home, that's for sure. The thought of talking to Petunia about boys almost makes her laugh. No one in Gryffindor, at the very least. No one who knows James, which basically amounts to no one.

She considers holing up in her room for the rest of the day until she looks out the window and sees the Gryffindor Quidditch team practicing. She's not even going to entertain the thought of being around any windows while that's going on.

By the time lunch is over, Lily has almost stopped thinking about the dream. She even hangs out in the common room, a feat she is particularly proud of herself for, given that anybody could walk in at any time. She lies down on the couch, taking up all of it, as a matter of fact, and reads a novel that her parents sent her. When the portrait opens to let someone inside, she doesn't even consider that it could be James until he approaches her, lifts up her legs quite stiffly, sits on the couch, and lets her knees rest over his lap. She feels her cheeks burning, but she refuses to let him know that, so she tries to pull off apathy as she continues reading her book.

"How are you doing, Evans?" He asks lightly, after a moment of silence.

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

Lily thinks about how her legs feel on top of James, how his hands are calm and casual on her knees. She knows what it is like to want someone, but usually the other person wants her back. James' feelings for her expired a long time ago, and she can't deal with the fact that it took her too long to catch up.

"What do you want, James?"

"What do you mean? I'm just trying to sit with a friend, have a chat, like friends do. I'm a friendly guy. You, however, have not been so friendly for the past couple of days."

"Guess I'm just moody."

"I know what you're like when you're moody, Evans. You don't ignore me. You yell at me. You're quite good at that, actually."

Lily continues reading her book, trying to ignore the smile that creeps up on her, trying not to think about the fact that James notices her, that he wants to be around her when she is not the fiery rebellious girl that everyone knows her as. The smile disappears completely, though, when James takes the book out of her hand.

"Who raised you this way?" She asks, sitting up and reaching for her book, which James hides behind his back.

"Is everything okay?" He asks, leaning hard against it and trying to catch her eye. "If there's something I did, can you tell me? Or something else that happened or something? Because for a minute there it seemed like we were becoming friends and now you're all silent."

That is something that Lily does not have an answer for. The dreams have been going on for a while. She looks at him for a little bit, really looks at him, as if she can discern his feelings for her by looking at the way he's watching her. His entire body looks tense, she notices. She also notices a thought that enters her brain, that she'd like to try and make him not tense. She exhales slowly and adjusts her position so that she is sitting next to him instead of across him.

After a long moment, she says, "I'm not mad at you."

James sighs and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees. Lily grabs her book back from behind him and he chuckles, shaking his head. She looks at him and wonders what she was so afraid of. It's just James, after all. Just this person sitting next to her, doing stupid things that make her smile in spite of herself.

He's looking at her now, his body loose and relaxed, looking from the book to her, the book to her, as if he's about to reach out and take it again. Maybe one day, she thinks, she'll tell him.

Feeling the secret weigh down on her, and feeling the potential to lighten her load, she thinks that maybe today is that day.

"Something did happen," She says, resisting the urge to bring her knees to her chest and curl up. If Potter is going to see this as a funny coincidence, she has to act casual. When he sits back up and looks at her, she knows his interest has been piqued. "I had this weird dream. We were being very... coupley on this couch. And it freaked me out, I suppose, and I got embarrassed."

She tries not to look at him, but out of the corner of her eye she sees a smirk struggling to be released. He attempts to stay straight-faced, though, as he asks, "Coupley?"

"Yes."

"Like, we were a couple of people?"

One glance at him reveals that he has absolutely no confusion as to what she meant. He is practically giddy. "Sod off," She says, and she stands up and begins to walk away.

"Hey, Evans!" He says, laughing, and grabs her at the waist from behind. "Were we like this?" He asks, whispering in her ear. He takes her right hand and lifts it above their heads. "Or were we like this?" There's a pause where neither of them do anything before he clarifies, "Come on. Twirl."

She takes her hand out of his and turns to face him. "We were sitting on the couch," She says, and while her mouth betrays nothing, her eyes have a certain glint in them that James doesn't think he has ever seen before. At least, not aimed toward him. She sits back down on the couch and he joins her, taking her left hand in his right.

"Does this turn you on, Evans?"

"It took a bit more than that for you to turn me on last night." She's laughing now, too, and James laughs too.

"Oi! We weren't chaste? I could never stand for that! It's strictly hand-holding and cute dancing until marriage for me. I feel so used."

"I did have my head on your shoulder, if that makes you feel any better."

"Hmm." He temporarily lets go of her hand to push her head down onto his shoulder. He smiles, pats her head, and says, "Hand-holding, cute dancing, and heads on shoulders. I've made an amendment."

"I'm glad I could be a person of influence in your life."

They stay like that for a little bit, and once the laughing has been over for a while, James asks, "What did we do after this?"

"We talked about transfiguration." Lily tenses as she says this.

"And after?"

She's silent. Again.

"Lily?"

At the sound of her first name, she whispers in his ear and the weight has been lifted. It's only James, after all.


End file.
